Students waiting to move into the suites in Lincoln Residence Hall finally will get to live in the rooms they paid for.

About 64 students who purchased new Lincoln Hall suites finally will be able to move in today, five weeks after the residence halls opened.

The suites will be ready to accommodate the students tonight, said Linda Tillis, assistant director of housing.

“We have been hurrying to get them into the suites as soon as possible,” she said. “The most important thing is to get the people in there.”

The students have been housed temporarily in Lincoln Hall double rooms.

Octavio Rivas, a sophomore biology student, has been very frustrated living in these conditions. He still is living out of his unpacked suitcase which he brought to campus on Aug. 16.

“They should not have encouraged us to register for these rooms if they thought this would happen. It seems like Housing doesn’t care,” he said.

Rivas said living in temporary housing is like living in a shoe box. Everything he owns is still packed up and he can not really move around. Other students also have been inconvenienced because they are waiting to move into single rooms when the suite residents move up to their rooms, Rivas said.

“If I knew this would happen, I would have stayed in my old room, or moved off campus. And Housing wonders why they loose so many students to off campus apartments and stuff,” Rivas said.

Tillis said she saw the process moving very slowly and she had to make the decision many times to keep it going.

“I knew all along that this would not come together in the short time we had. But I felt it was important to finish the project. Who knows if the money will be there later (to continue the project),” she said.

The students were told they could move in after the radiators were installed, which was two weeks ago. Then on Sept. 9, Sheryl Mullis, the area coordinator for Lincoln and Douglas Halls sent the students a letter, informing them of the progress taking place in the suites.

“There are two areas that are still in the stages of ‘construction’ on this project. The first setback is the process of having the wood furniture set in place by the vendor. The second setback is that the locks for the doors have not been completed yet,” the letter states.

Mullis said the students signed an agreement saying they understood the rooms might not be completed by the move in time and that temporary housing would be provided.

“I only signed a contract, not any agreement. When I heard there may be a signed agreement, I looked through all of my paperwork and did not see anything,” Rivas said. He then spoke to four of his friends and asked them if they signed an agreement, and only one said he had.

The rooms are now in need of the key cores and the furniture needs to be inventoried, Mullis said. “We’re as anxious for them to enjoy the suites as they are,” she said.

The students will receive a prorated fee for the time they spent in the double rooms, which will be applied to the room fees, Mullis said.

The suites are an additional $405 a semester. They consist of two bedrooms and a third room which connects the bedrooms is a living room with a couch, two chairs, lamps, coffee tables (which have not yet arrived) and newly carpeted floors.

“The rooms are beautiful. I can’t wait to move into them,” Rivas said.

“We have been hurrying to get them into the suites as soon as possible. … We’re as anxious for them to enjoy the suites as they are.”

Linda Tillis

assistant director of housing